Interplanetary pit stops: Harnessing asteroids as solar filling stations for Earth-to-Mars missions

This paper studies Earth–Mars missions that utilize asteroid candidates as intermediate stops to perform in-situ resource utilization refueling and minimize overall spacecraft launch mass from Earth. The first leg of the trajectory intercepts one such asteroid candidate, where the spacecraft performs an insertion into a Sun–asteroid distant retrograde orbit. After refueling, the spacecraft transfers from the asteroid to Mars. While heliocentric orbital transfers are computed using Lambert’s problem, particle swarm optimization and dynamical systems theory are used to compute the proposed Sun–asteroid distant retrograde orbit and to determine the DV-optimal trajectories to approach and land onto the asteroid. The selection process for candidate asteroids narrows down from over a million possibilities to 94 asteroids based on specific orbital parameters. Significant DV savings and mission cost reductions are demonstrated through strategic asteroid selection. A double-arc trajectory model between Earth, an asteroid, and Mars is outlined, addressing computational challenges by dividing the problem into subdomains. The development of Sun–asteroid distant retrograde orbit families and the optimization of landing trajectories on selected asteroids using particle swarm optimization highlight the feasibility and advantages of asteroid-based refueling stations for sustainable space exploration.